The impeding shutdown of Philippine Ragnarok Online (pRO), one of the oldest eSports titles in the country, has spawned more questions in regards to its integrity and whether it was possible for it to have kept operating.

Jake San Diego, General Manager of PlayPark and Level Up! games explained that the game’s ailing performance in the face of modern video game models, was the primary culprit.

San Diego compared the visuals to PlayPark’s new offering, Cabal Online 2, the latter being more graphically advanced.

He then added that pRO wasn’t delivering income like it used to. As such, to continue it would be operating at a loss, which led to the decision of merging it with the more stable iRO.

Despite the explanation, players have theorized the true reasons of the downfall of pRO:

Mismanagement – Having switched owners more than twice (PLDT, Playweb, Asiasoft), and possibly losing money in the process, it would’ve been a matter of time before irrecoverable resource drain occurred.

Overly-generous promos – Long-protested promos that damaged ingame economy and game integrity was theorized to have made game management a complete nightmare, so much that very little could be done.

Deteriorating community – Player saturation, burnout, and the inevitable generation shift is also a contributor.

Corrupted game integrity – Also connected with generous promos was the fact game abusers were not culled, for the simple fear of losing income in the process.